News Archive

– MARCH 2017 –

EVENT „Nothing to fear but fear itself?“ On March 20, Puissance Europe/Weltmacht Europa (PE/WE) attended the DEMOS briefing on Social, Economic and Political Fears and Insecurities, at La Maison de l’Europe of Paris. The DEMOS pan-European research has sought to capture how fear is manifesting in EU member states, through the rise of far-right populist movements, the collapse of the social contract between citizens and political institutions, and the proliferation of authoritarian and exclusionary rhetoric. Significantly, DEMOS preconizations (promote safety and security, restore the social contract, make the case for openness and democracy, counter post-truth narratives) do concur with the politics of hope our Continental Manifesto champions.

– FEBRUARY 2017 –

NEWS February 26, 2017: Puissance Europe/Weltmacht Europa took part in the first public appearance of #pulseofeurope in Paris. #pulseofeurope is a citizens’ initiative that started from Frankfurt and aims at gathering as many people as possible, who stand for a united and democratic Europe, convinced that a majority of citizens all over our continent are only yearning for a more perfect Union. We citizens are in charge, in the first place, of the success or failure of Europe. Puissance Europe/Weltmacht Europa urges all citizens in Paris and Ile-de-France to take an active part on next Sundays from 15:00 to 16:00, 141 rue Rambuteau, in front of St. Eustache, and to visit #pulseofeurope website to stay tuned about the initiative’s progress in Germany, The Netherlands, France and beyond.

OBITUARY: Jean-Pierre Gouzy passed away on February 17. He was our memory of European post-war history. He left us, deeply dissatisfied with the present state of the Union. His commitment to European unity dated back to four years before the The Hague Congress (1948). Close in various ways to the great founders of the European Union of Federalists, Henri Brugmans, Alexandre Marc, Denis de Rougemont and Altiero Spinelli, and a relentless activist and champion of United States of Europe, he kept the French federalist house over several decades. He supported Puissance Europe/Weltmacht Europa from the start and followed with great attention the writing of our Continental Manifesto.

– JANUARY 2017 –

OBITUARY: Jacques Moreau passed away on Jan. 24. A former S&D MEP, and secretary-general of the European Economic and Social Committee, he will be reminded for his contributions to the Single Market, the EMU and the European Charter of Fundamental Social Rights. Puissance Europe/Weltmacht Europa has lost a faithful friend and a shrewd critique. He fought for a more social Europe to the very end.

NEWS January 17, 2017 – Bernard Barthalay published an op-ed in the Huffington Post on Jan. 17 to welcome the commitment of Emmanuel Macron, a candidate to the French presidential election, to give Germany, after seventeen years from Joschka Fischer’s speech at the Humboldt University Berlin, the appropriate positive answer that it deserved.

NEWS January 5, 2017 – La double démocratie (Democracy Twice), a new book by Michel Aglietta and Nicolas Leron (Editions du Seuil, Paris), was released on Jan. 5. The recommendation is to give the eurozone a capacity to act, that is a budget, as both the embodiment of a new political order, encompassing two fully fledged democracies, the one national, the other European, and a last resort public investment agent, aimed at triggering a new regime of sustainable growth. A new juxtanational sovereign public power is enough to avoid the false dilemma federalism vs. the death of Europe, and break the present stalemate.

– SEPTEMBER 2016 –

NEWS September 21, 2016 – To any one who doubts that peace requires a limitation of national sovereignty, this book, just released, may be of great help. It brings together several texts (and their English references) by one the greatest British federalists in the Interwar, Lord Lothian.

Luigi Vittorio Maiocchi wrote the forword. By and large, it is a major contribution by both compilators, J. F. Billion and J. L. Prevel, to address the French unawareness of this major school of thought, that inspired Spinelli and federalist works as published in The Federalist review.

NEWS September 2, 2016 – A new article in French has been published yesterday by one of our members, Aude Faravelli, evaluating potential future arrangements of EU-UK-relationships: Le Brexit, c’est le Brexit.

NEWS July 27, 2016 – A new tab has been created to host texts already published on other websites or on our facebook pages, and which are still of interest for our next initiatives. The first one is a draft manifesto Bernard Barthalay wrote in 2006 about a bottom-up participative constituent process. Time is ripe to start such a process now.

NEWS July 26, 2016 – The Forum is alive. We have received a first comment. While the European Commission is planning a vertical communication campaign, top down, our Forum will host horizontal debate, among citizens, to answer the „what to do?“ question, bottom up. A German friend, Marc Saxer, opened a general thread. His comment addresses lots of issues raised by our Manifesto and deserved an in-depth answer to highlight convergences and to open new paths for further debate. His text, short but of great interest, has been published as a contribution; it will be followed by our own input.

NEWS May 23, 2016 – Spinelli died on May 23rd 1986. „A Continental Manifesto“ (click on the above tab) is all about the fight he initiated before the end of WWII on behalf of the citizens of European states for the constitution of „a free and united Europe“. To commemorate, Bernard Barthalay, Robert Müller and Michele Ballerin published an op-ed this morning in the Huffington Post (France).